Dixon and Pitt both would have been better off if we put more money into assistant salaries and improved the facilities when he was here. He is struggling somewhat at TCU and we are clearly in a worse spot.
The Grass Isn’t Always Greener
- Thread starter TheSpecialSauce
- Start date
I think what I've learned from the last 21 years of watching Pitt basketball is that it's really hard to consistently win for 95% of teams. Unless you're UNC, Kansas, Louisville, etc., changing coaches is a hugely underappreciated roll of the dice. Pitt didn't get it right with Dixon, they got lucky. He was the home run that nobody expected. After that, we hired the experienced veteran followed by the young ace recruiter. That we've potentially failed with both of those divergent styles makes me very concerned about our program in general.
Well then it might be interesting to see why goes on there. While he hasn’t elevated them to where they’d like to be, they’re much better than they were. So will that be enough or will they get rid of him and try to do better? And I realize he’s still an alum but will his boy DelConte being gone have an impact?
You missed the point. Kansas went from winning/playing for national championships under Larry Brown, to Roy Williams, and Bill Self. They all did it over 30 years.
We went from losing close ACC games to getting blown out by 40 in ACC games to getting blown out by 20-30.
Coach Dixon's last year at PITT, the team made the NCAA tournament.
There were also four returning starters coming back the following year and a future first round NBA draft pick in Cam Johnson.
That low bar of success was looked at as the floor at the time.
The floor is now what this PITT program is dreaming of making.
There were also four returning starters coming back the following year and a future first round NBA draft pick in Cam Johnson.
That low bar of success was looked at as the floor at the time.
The floor is now what this PITT program is dreaming of making.
My maybe too early take is that Dixon couldn't get the recruits he needed to get Pitt back to being a 1 seed in the ACC, but he could develop and coach them to a 6-8 seed in the ACC.
Capel seems to be able to get the recruits necessary to get Pitt higher than 6-8, but he can only develop and coach them to about 10th-13th in the ACC.
Stallings couldn't really do any of the above (yeah I know 2 of his guys ended up being good elsewhere, don't care).
JD recruited some fine players to Pitt . Adams , Birch , JRob , Zanna , JJ Moore , Blair , Taylor , S & M (!) Young etc . Pitts current roster while greatly improved from the Stallings yrs doesn’t have any players that talented . ( JJ was a top 100 kid )
JDs last team with JRob , MYoung , Artis , Jeter would easily defeat this yrs team .
You just can’t forget had bad the roster was when JC took over . What would make any talented kid want to come into a program so depleted of talent as Pitt was . It’s to JC credit that he’s been able to rebuild Pitts roster in three yrs to where it currently is now . There’s still a lot of work to do and losing Hugley won’t help .
There was absolutely no chance Pitt could’ve hired a big time coach ,if they couldn’t do after Ben H left who in their right mind would’ve followed KS ?
Expecting faster results without an active booster group is delusional.
Will Pitt ever be a big dog in the ACC , I doubt it , but JC will get them into the second tier in time .
Lol the hoops you jump through to defend Capel is actually insane. Heather should get a list ready and soon.
Capel better bring in 4-5 players that can instantly help next year. We are probably losing our best player to the NBA, and the next two most talented players have been huge letdowns when we needed them the most.
What? Pitt sucks. Again. Every “good win” has proven to be shit. It’s year 3 with zero recruits and probably 2 of their only 3 players worth having leaving after this year. THAT is reality.
So if Toney leaves after the season and Justin turna pro. Now what? We have 0 RECRUITS so far for next season! I mean c'mon! Plus look at Capel's history. His team's pretty much every season start collapsing around this time through the end. He definitely isn't an X's and O's coach. What is his strategy? What adjustments does he make? Remember ND this year is awful! They were 5-9 coming into the game last night. 5-9!! And they destroyed us!! They could have won by 40 if they wanted. That is completely unacceptable.
Get Brandin Knight on speed dial ASAP! Makes too much sense and would put his heart and soul into this program.
His teams haven’t been very good yet to consider their failures a collapse. X and Trey surprised everyone their first yr , but there games are limited which everyone figured out . Year two neither improved.
ND wasn’t awful yesterday !
A team collapsing was KS first yr with Young ,Artist and Jetter and co . None of JC teams come close to this level of talent .
Why? There's zero evidence at all he's capable of being the head coach of an ACC team? I hope BK is ready to step in at some point but right now he isn't ready.
What “evidence” was there that Mike Tomlin was ready to be an NFL head coach at 34?
it’s hilarious to me that people act like running a college program needs years and years of experience yet the NFL the most prestigious jobs in the world are going to guys in their 30’s. It’s basketball, not brain surgery.
Jamie Dixon wasn’t ready either. He was far down the list.
And while it’s still a big time job, I’m not so sure the top guys next in line won’t wait. If this season continues to spiral it’s gonna be another big mess.
Bingo! Noll, Cowher, and Tomlin were all young, hungry coaches without head coaching experience when the Steelers hired them. The next hire must be young guy who will run through a brick wall to win. Someone who MUST win. Ideally - he turns around the program and hands the keys to the top assistant who keeps the program rolling. Majors-Sherrill and Howland-Dixon.
Hell yeah, he's my pick if the job comes open. I'll lobby for him.
Someone who played on a severely sprained ankle in the Big East championship game at Madison Square Garden.
Exactly and BK would love to come back here and wouldn't put up with crap. Good hire IMO
I'm willing to admit there's a chance I'm completely wrong about BK. It's just atypical for a P6 team to hire someone with no head coaching experience. Could BK be the answer? Sure, but there's also a solid chance he becomes completely overwhelmed and the program bottoms out yet again.
IMO Knight would have to be an extraordinary recruiter to take that kind of gamble. The former player with no head coaching experience is certainly problematic, Chris Mullin and Patrick Ewing were/are absolute busts. Penny Hardaway has recruited well but can’t coach a lick. Juwan Howard at this point looks like he can do both.
We already have a head coach now that had the reputation coming in as a guy that recruited well but wasnt much of a gameday coach. Right now it looks like he hasn’t recruited well enough to compensate for his other deficiencies. Teams that collapse late in the year are generally poorly coached, the other teams in the league have seen what they do and adjustments arent being made in order to maintain early season success.
Obviously 3 games don’t qualify as a collapse, but if it doesn’t turn around and this team folds again for the third year in a row it is directly on Capel and his staff. Not that his job should be in jeopardy now, but if year 4 is more of the same he needs to be ordered to make a staff overhaul. If the results are still unsatisfactory after year 5 then a change in head coaches would be necessary.
While this isn’t the football board, this same agenda should have been applied to Narduzzi five years ago. We continue to excuse mediocrity.
And the rest of the story ....they couldn’t lure any big time coach to take over a really good team and went with JD as a last resort !
Sometimes the knuckleheads that run Pitt athletics get lucky !
And it seems the same thing will likely have to happen again. Unless they back up a Brinks truck - that doesn’t exist.
Well I don’t know that Hurley was quite big time. Certainly not as big as Prosser when Pitt made a run at him.
Yeah. If he can recruit well he'll do a decent job. I kinda feel like you either have it or you don't. If you're going to be a stud coach you're going to be one whether you win for two years at directional state university or not.
I see the situations as slightly different. Narduzzi took over a program where the cupboard certainly wasn’t bare and we are pretty much at status quo 6 years later. If Pitt decided to move on from him I would have zero problem with that at all.
Capel inherited quite possibly the biggest mess in all of college basketball so I’m inclined to be a little more patient with him. I do realize it’s a lot easier to turn around a basketball program than a football team though, so he’s got to start showing better results soon. It’s not the roster turnover that concerns me as that’s endemic to the sport, but the late season tank jobs are unacceptable. If this season continues its downward slide next year is probably going to be an important one for Jeff Capel.
This is where I'm at, as well. And BK would be facing an immense challenge if he were to step in at that point.
I think that's where the comparisons to Tomlin and the Steelers end. Tomlin stepped into a situation with a stable organization and a fairly loaded team. BK would need to completely resurrect a program from the dead. It's night and day.
No doubt, they certainly are different situations. My point was solely how pathetic the football program has been and how we still do not appear to have an upward trajectory.
Never say never it's so eerily the same when Suzie hired her sister to coach with her. That didn't end well
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